


Now You Do

by InadvertentlyRomantic



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 17:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15418311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InadvertentlyRomantic/pseuds/InadvertentlyRomantic
Summary: Harold wants John and John wants Harold right back.





	Now You Do

The whiskey burned the whole way down his throat and he almost didn’t feel it. Suddenly even breathing felt too exhausting. He felt the need to hurt something else in his body to drown out the ache in his chest. He stood up and walked slowly to the huge windows that gave the loft its only light source. It was almost midnight, the city seemed almost sleepy. The thought of running away crossed his mind again when he looked back at the earpiece and phone dropped on the dining table. He wanted to get away from it all, from this abject disappointment, from this sadness, from Harold. 

He knew this day would come sooner or later. Damn it, he knew. He wasn’t an idiot. And it hurt as if someone clubbed him in the face nonetheless. Harold didn’t want him. Harold shouldn’t want him. That much he was aware of and in agreement with. But Harold being with someone else, sleeping with someone else, with an escort that looked like him but nowhere near as tainted and monstrous, and didn’t even bother to hide it, to turn of the comm link was…excruciating to face. 

He heard them kissing, heard Harold’s keening moans and his heart gave a painful twist before he wised up and turned the whole thing off. The Machine was kind enough to supply him with the information of the male escort in an effort to inform him that Harold was safe before it promised to let him know when there was a number and to resume connection…safely. 

He felt grateful to the AI, but a humorless thought had already presented itself in his mind: what did it matter? He may be leaving soon. Maybe it was time for him to stop cheating fate. Maybe it was time to let these silly feelings for his boss go. Maybe it was time to leave again before he overstayed his welcome. Harold Finch was a good man. He was the best man John knew, but there were limits to even his generous nature. Love was never on the table. And John knew that. He knew that it wasn’t fair to want Finch. It wasn’t fair to want the moon – an impossibility – and then cry and throw a tantrum when you couldn’t have it. It wasn’t even fair to ask for it. It was forbidden. He was too much of a monster to ever be loved by such a gentle soul like Harold. What John didn’t expect was how much this would hurt when it happened. How much seeing Harold with someone else would feel like dying. How much more preferable actual dying would feel compared to this.

Mindlessly, he packed his bags. Bag, actually. He didn’t own a lot of things apart from the guns and the suits. And he didn’t feel like having more reminders of Harold. So just the guns then. He wasn’t sure if he could leave for real, but packing things up calmed him momentarily, the way running away from what you were afraid of always felt – relieving – until it caught up with you. 

His cellphone chirped and he checked the message reflexively. “Turn on your comm”. It was from the Machine so he did what it asked without thinking too much about…them.  
There was some faint noise. He waited for the static voice announcing a string of numbers. But there was nothing but the sound of crying. The sobbing noise got louder and louder until the sound of hiccups peppered through enough to disrupt it and let John know it was Harold who was crying. 

He was out the door before the Machine managed to tell him the name of the hotel Harold was in. And he already decided on how much pain he was going to put that son of a bitch through for hurting Finch before he even reached Harold’s floor. He opened the hotel room’s door none too gently, frantically searching for Finch. The room was dark except for the streetlight letting him see the small form of Harold’s lying on the bed. 

“Harold, it’s me.” He voiced his presence while trying to turn on the bedside lamp. The face that greeted him was streaked with tears. Harold looked so small and helpless in his matching pajamas and without his glasses. 

“John?” he asked in a small voice rusty with crying. “Why…wha…what are you doing here?”.

John ached to enfold Finch’s small form into his arms, but his instincts told him not to spook the man and to get the situation assessed as soon as possible.  
“What happened, Harold? I heard you crying…through the comm.”  
John’s calm voice settled Harold’s emotions enough for him to realize that he was sobbing in his bed, and John was so very close. So close and yet out of his reach entirely.  
Suddenly struck by an inexplicably painful feeling of loss, Harold turned blindly to John and began to weep harder. 

Reese let him cry and just held him gently, a hand splaying on Harold’s back stroking him comfortingly. After a while, Finch finally cried his heart out and became quieter. John released him slightly from his grasp and lifted the older man’s chin to face him. “Finch, I need you to tell me if you’re alright. Did..he hurt you? Because he’ll have hell to pay if he did.”.  
Harold was quiet for some time, but then he let out a sigh and said quietly “So you heard me and…?” At John’s nod of confirmation, he continued “He didn’t hurt me, Mr. Reese. I’m fine.”.  
“But you’re crying. Something must have happened.”. Reese’s instinctively held him closer.  
It felt so good to be in John’s embrace it almost killed Harold to know that after this confession of his, he’d never have this again.  
Harold slowly extricated himself from John’s hold and looked his partner in the eye. Miserably, he laid out his heart.  
“Nothing happened, John. No one hurt anyone. I was…going to bed with that man, but I couldn’t do it. All I could think about was you, and having another’s lips on my lips and another’s hands on my body just felt too wrong, too sad. That’s why I broke down.”.

The silence in the room was so suffocating that Reese’s raspy voice sounded like a crack of thunder after a hot day. “You want me.” It was not a question but Harold nodded his confirmation all the same even though he couldn’t look John in the eye anymore.  
Slowly, Reese’s big, rough hands cupped Harold’s small, pale face to make the older man look at him and, oh, he was smiling that little smile of his that gave Harold’s stupid heart hope. “Don’t you know, Finch, that I have always been yours? John asked with quiet happiness and something close to love in his green eyes, in his quiet raspy voice.  
“No…No, I did not know that, Mr. Reese.” Harold’s fingers grasped John’s shirt of their own volition to keep John close.  
John moved impossibly closer to him and stole a chaste kiss. “Now you do, my love.”.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this should have a sequel, but I'm not sure which direction to take this. So, any suggestion would be greatly appreciated!


End file.
